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i'm the guy here who has written (endlessly) about what I'm against: super conferences, the destruction of tradition, musical chairs realignment.
that's what I'm against. What am I for:
the colleges that play the game, the conferences that they belong to, the students on campus, and a sensible model for the most traditional of games.
30 teams play in MLB, 32 in the NFL. They are professional. And you can't play without a championship being the goal.
College football is different. Realistically (using BCS numbers and the few other schools that belong belong to such a grouping), major college football has more than twice the number of schools than either MLB or NFL.
The vast majority of these schools will never play for college supremacy. But virtually all can compete either frequently or at times for a conference championship. And a conference championship, may I remind you, is a big thing, even if the divisional winners within it are not all that big.
College football is still played locally and locally is your area of the nation and often it is attached to a conference (or at least used to be). The Midwest is the Big Ten, the west coast is the Pac 12, the southeast coast is the ACC, the Mid-South is the SEC.
Colleges near by, often with students who know each other well, with rivalries dominating the game. Colleges, more than anything else, are about the students who go to them and the alums who support the program. They live on that local level.
Yet all the realignment issues and the super conferences that now rule the game are not designed for the colleges, their students, and the regional conferences they love. It's all built for bottom line financial issues. Big money gained from college conferences playing the money making championship games (even if it weakens the experience during the precious regular season) and the endless goal to set up a national championship wiht the super conferences being the basis for it. Again, these are monied interests guiding the game as in no time in its history; this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. This is the era of big business and big money. IT's all about the green. Every aspect of our lives has been boiled down to crass commercialism and increase of profits.
And fans of college football are as ill served by this profit-at-all-cost fiasco and professional sports fans are ill served by corporate named stadiums, the-rich-get-richer competition and fans who can ill afford to buy a ticket to the game.
If college football continues its bottom line path, it will destroy any sense of amateur game (ok...I realize that's nothing but pure illusion. but still...), any true value to the regular season, any attachment to the traditions that ruled this game like no other, with nobody who could compete with it short, perhaps, MLB, which has done a great job of dumping most of its tradition, the tradition that made the game like no other in pro sports, what it was. If college football is little more than NFL Lite, who needs the Lite when the real thing is there. If college football is not rooted on its precious campuses and regional matchups, it is lost, can't be sustained by so many schools that have no chance to make it. And if by some chance college football gets boiled down to some 30 or so schools, who cares? Good chance your state university won't be in that mix; how are you going to build interest in a sport where Oklahoma gets to play with the big boys, but next door Kansas does not. It's elite; and it stinks.
It's insane. Money and football rule the colleges. Basketball, god bless it, at least doesn't operate in the same sphere (though big money is surely there, too). College basketball invites everybody to the dance, or at least some 70 teams. It is not dependent on conference structuring short of given conference torunament winners a seed.
Not so in college football. The numbers that go into any play-off will be, by reality, preciously small, certainly no bigger than 16 and far more likely 8 or 4.
And all the efforts of the game go towards that set up that is coming down the pike. That's the reason for realignment and that's the reason for having super conferences (16 team monsters that your alma mater stands a good chance of never winning).
If anyone wants to continue to play the endless musical chair game of conference realignment, be my guest.
Let me start by saying I apologize for chopping up your post but I kept the things I wanted to comment on... In addition, I don't really disagree with your overall sentiment... but
Quote:
Originally Posted by edsg25
The vast majority of these schools will never play for college supremacy. But virtually all can compete either frequently or at times for a conference championship. And a conference championship, may I remind you, is a big thing, even if the divisional winners within it are not all that big.
College football is still played locally and locally is your area of the nation and often it is attached to a conference (or at least used to be). The Midwest is the Big Ten, the west coast is the Pac 12, the southeast coast is the ACC, the Mid-South is the SEC.
Colleges near by, often with students who know each other well, with rivalries dominating the game. Colleges, more than anything else, are about the students who go to them and the alums who support the program. They live on that local level.
I disagree with the premise of this assumption. Yes major college football has twice as many teams as pro leagues. But that is true in ALL the major sports. Football, Baseball, & Basketball. The other 2 have National Championships determined with a tournament, therefore so should Football.
You mention the schools play locally. This has not been true for 30 years. Teams play all over the country. The US and the world for that matter is much smaller than it was 30 years ago. With advances in travel, technology, television, and social media (facebook, youtube, twitter) we know longer ONLY know about what is going on locally. The need for the sport to expand is a direct reflection of this.
It is no longer acceptable to fans/students/alumni/players/coaches (people) to JUST be the best in their local area. The country as a whole knows more about what other areas are doing. Therefore in sports where you compete to be win a championship, being a local champion is not good enough anymore. The need to be the best in the entire country trumps all the local tradition there is... ESPN is not a regional channel. it is a national one. The internet is not limited to your local area. Phones dial worldwide easily now. A kid that goes to UGA, knows just as much about kids at UCLA as they do about kids at GA Tech because of things like the ESPN, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, & smartphones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by edsg25
It's insane. Money and football rule the colleges. Basketball, god bless it, at least doesn't operate in the same sphere (though big money is surely there, too). College basketball invites everybody to the dance, or at least some 70 teams. It is not dependent on conference structuring short of given conference torunament winners a seed.
I agree with you about how basketball does their tournament. But it's not different than any other NCAA sport really. The problem with football is not the setting up the tournament without conference structuring... It's that the regular season setup doesnt allow for that.
Because there was not a playoff tournament the college football seasons expanded to 11 and 12 games in some cases with a conference championship and bye weeks. This removes the possibility for having a decent size tournament that it is NOT dependent on conference structuring as it would be too many games... With the long regular season, the conference structure HAS to be part of the tournament. There in lies the problem. The regular season needs to be shortened to work like Basketball or Baseball and every NCAA sport. Otherwise the confernce structure is the ONLY way to accomplish an inevitable playoff. The long regular seasons is a byproduct of an inadequate post season system being in place for far too long....
Too many people who make decisions worrying about tradition over evolving. The days of you don't re-invent the wheel are over. Soon there wont be wheels. The world is changing and evolving every day... Its time college football get in the 21st century and stop worrying about ending traditions and start some NEW traditions...
So I believe conferences need to expand to be the catalyst in major college football evolving!!!
I disagree with the premise of this assumption. Yes major college football has twice as many teams as pro leagues. But that is true in ALL the major sports. Football, Baseball, & Basketball. The other 2 have National Championships determined with a tournament, therefore so should Football.
I'm not sure where you think we disagree. I fully agree with you. I would love to see an 8 team play-off at the end of the season.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. GE
You mention the schools play locally. This has not been true for 30 years. Teams play all over the country. The US and the world for that matter is much smaller than it was 30 years ago. With advances in travel, technology, television, and social media (facebook, youtube, twitter) we know longer ONLY know about what is going on locally. The need for the sport to expand is a direct reflection of this.
I don't think I made my point clearly enough. By locally I did not mean that they didn't play teams across the nation (actually those games have always been a part of college football; just think ND-USC for an eternity).
By locally I meant there is a connection between the schools and those around them, rivalries made by student bodies that overlap based on nearness and a helluva lot of going to high school together. They're local in the sense that the conferences are representative of their regions, part of their culture (no one is going to confuse Big Ten country with the land of the SEC).
But let me take this one step further: no matter what you do, no matter who you play, your season is almost totally dependent on the little world that is your conference and its footprint. Those non-conference, transcontinental games? They're usually the beginning of the season when no team has its act together. In the NFL, they call that the pre-season. I'm glad that is not the case in college football. Still, I would hate to evaluate how well a team plays on the basis of a late August/early September game.
The conference is the basis for the football season. In some respects, it is a closed loop. There is no real overlapping competition and plenty of schools schedule cupcakes for those initial games. The only real meaning is how you play in your conference since there is no real comparison. How do I know how the SEC and Big Ten match up with each other when Big Ten schools may schedule Western Michigan, Miami of Ohio, and Ball State when the SEC is scheduling Southern Miss, UL Lafayette, and Troy at the same time?
Conferences count. Let each one have a seed in a play-off. Discard wild cards: you earn it on the field. And, as such, the size of the conference or the spread of territory it covers is irrelevant. It can have a smaller football because it is a closed loop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. GE
It is no longer acceptable to fans/students/alumni/players/coaches (people) to JUST be the best in their local area. The country as a whole knows more about what other areas are doing. Therefore in sports where you compete to be win a championship, being a local champion is not good enough anymore. The need to be the best in the entire country trumps all the local tradition there is... ESPN is not a regional channel. it is a national one. The internet is not limited to your local area. Phones dial worldwide easily now. A kid that goes to UGA, knows just as much about kids at UCLA as they do about kids at GA Tech because of things like the ESPN, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, & smartphones.
I think I covered this point by suggesting an 8 team play-off, conference champs only and hopefully with conferences no bigger than 12 (after 12 they lose their interconnectiveness and meaning).
but I disagree on the national championship and winning it all being the end all and be all. That was my point about 64 or so teams:
too many schools to make the goal you suggest a goal. It isn't sustainable. What I was suggesting is that interest will fade and fade fast among too many schools if all the eggs are placed in the championship basket.
But I'm also suggesting to you that you can have your cake and eat it too. In other words, you can still totally respect the conferences, keep them at optimum size and make the competition local enough to spark interest...
and still have an 8 team play-off that will choose a real champion, something the BCS cannot do.
None of which will kill off games broadcasting across the nation and interest in other conferences. Think of it this way: if for much of the season, the conference is the closed loop I suggest, how fascinating would it be to watch all those races, knowing that the conference champ would end up in the play-offs with a chance for a national title.
I'd love to see a 12 team conference get rid of its divisions and play an 11 game round robin. If you win the conference outright, you are the champ. If two teams tie, they play each other in a championship game. If three or more teams tie, two are selected by formula (point differential, head to head competiton, etc.). That would make great races across the nation in 8 conferences, each with a champion that can go on to win a national championship.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. GE
I agree with you about how basketball does their tournament. But it's not different than any other NCAA sport really. The problem with football is not the setting up the tournament without conference structuring... It's that the regular season setup doesnt allow for that.
100% correct. BTW, the March Madness doesn't really crown a national champion as much as it awards a tournament winner. That winner quite frequently is not the best team in the land.
Football, by the nature of it being "The Event" it is, is far too taxing for an invite all tournament. But in being so, football can do something that basketball could not: by the selectiveness of the field, it can produce a real national champion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. GE
Because there was not a playoff tournament the college football seasons expanded to 11 and 12 games in some cases with a conference championship and bye weeks. This removes the possibility for having a decent size tournament that it is NOT dependent on conference structuring as it would be too many games... With the long regular season, the conference structure HAS to be part of the tournament. There in lies the problem. The regular season needs to be shortened to work like Basketball or Baseball and every NCAA sport. Otherwise the confernce structure is the ONLY way to accomplish an inevitable playoff. The long regular seasons is a byproduct of an inadequate post season system being in place for far too long....
again, total agreement
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. GE
Too many people who make decisions worrying about tradition over evolving. The days of you don't re-invent the wheel are over. Soon there wont be wheels. The world is changing and evolving every day... Its time college football get in the 21st century and stop worrying about ending traditions and start some NEW traditions...
So I believe conferences need to expand to be the catalyst in major college football evolving!!!
I disagree. College football walks a fine line. And if that line becomes too professional (wink. wink. it already is profesional), why watch it? get rid of the color and the tradition, you've lost the game. You might as well watch the NFL if colleges give you no more than NFL Lite.
Why does MLB endure as a major force with the NFL when, let's face it, the NFL offers far more action to entice the fans? I'd give credit to tradition.
You mention keeping up with the times, GE, but our times are cancerous and destructive. You have to remember that in previous, less money-trumps-all eras, the fans enjoyed keeping the traditions going because they were part of the game. We're breaking heritage not to keep up with the times, but to keep down to the bottom line, the moola, the buck.
Our times are crass and commercial beyond endurance, not only in college football, but across the board. Money is the bottom line. And money kills creativity and dilutes the meaning of all. It happens on watered down t.v. that is designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator, same at the theatre, same in the professional sports built on the rich get richer and and uneven playing fields.....and it's the same as college football.
Kill the traditions if you like, GE, but in the process, eventually nobody will give a darn.
Edge and Mr. GE BOTH make really good points that I can agree with.
Keeping conferences tight knit makes more sense for fostering a sense of place, belonging and investment.
I also agree that even if you don't have a chance of winning a natty, winning a conference championship is something that should be lauded. The previous conference structures make it easier to do this than with the bloated set up we have now.
COUNTERPOINT.
Yet money has ALWAYS factored into the equation and there ALWAYS has been conference shuffling. It just happens over a long period of time. Tradition is always changing. Remember the Southern Conference? The Missouri Valley? The Big 8? Texas and Arkansas used to be big rivals. Penn St. and Florida St. used to be indies things change it's part of life.
College football reminds me of European soccer. Money has always been a factor but it exploded in the 90s creating a new world order of sorts. Old Timers lament it but both sports have more fans and attention than ever so it's a wash.
WRAP UP;
I just hope too many people aren't left out in the cold. I don't care if Kansas is a powerhouse or not, you do not leave an athletic program like theirs out to wither.
100% correct. BTW, the March Madness doesn't really crown a national champion as much as it awards a tournament winner. That winner quite frequently is not the best team in the land.
Please explain. Reminders...
UConn - 2011 National Champion - 29-9 who won the Big East (i.e. the best Basketball conference) tourney. They were paired in a division with last year's winner Duke. They never lost out-of-conference beating teams like Kentucky and Michigan St.
Duke - 2010 National Champion - 35-5.
Alot of these midmajors aren't as bad as people assume. Big teams, especially those from the Big East, always sleep on them looking ahead at the next game and end up losing. If they were that great, they wouldn't do that year in, year out (I am talking about you Villanova, especially).
Quote:
Football, by the nature of it being "The Event" it is, is far too taxing for an invite all tournament. But in being so, football can do something that basketball could not: by the selectiveness of the field, it can produce a real national champion.
Depending how that tournament is set up. If autobids exist, a true champion might still be excluded.
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